🎆 The Not-To-Do List for 2025

Invert, always invert.

This quote could be from an offensive coordinator of a Lacrosse team, but it's not. It's from Charlie Munger, one of the best thinkers of his time.

You can solve a lot of problems by way of inversion. We learn this early on in algebra, and the principle holds true in most areas of life.

For example, if I asked you, "how can you help India?", you likely wouldn't have an answer.

"How can you hurt India?" is a much easier question. You'd instantly be able to come with one thousand things: plunge the country into war, install a dictator, legalize guns, you get the idea.

And then, you just do the opposite of that: work hard for peace, protect democracy, have no people running around bearing arms.

Inversion teaches you what to avoid.

So instead of asking yourself: "what can I do to achieve my goals in 2025?", ask: "what can I do to miss my goals in 2025?".

And then, just do the opposite.

You'll end up with your own, personal Not-To-Do List.

I've written one every year since 2020 (except for 2022).

Here's mine for 2025. Let's dive in. ⬇️

[1] Sticking to commitments even though they no longer make sense

"Rules can hold us back when we stop asking why they exist and just blindly follow them. What are rules you follow that are holding you back?" – Shane Parrish

Integrity is very important to me. I want to be a man of my word, and pride myself on doing the things I say I'm going to do.

So for the longest time, when I made a commitment in advance, I honored it. A lunch meeting booked for in 2 weeks? Cool, I'll be there.

Even if taking the meeting didn't make sense at the time anymore.

This is a form of hyperbolic discounting. We say yes to things in the future that we'd say no to today. "Sure, let's grab lunch in 3 weeks", even though in reality, you wouldn't really wanna have lunch with them tomorrow.

Things and priorities change quickly, and I deeply respect when someone texts me that as of right now, it doesn't make sense for them to meet and they'd rather allocate the time somewhere else.

So in 2025, the move is to listen to my gut: is this the right thing to do right now? And if it's not, then just don't do it – even if you committed to it beforehand.

As long as you say no graciously (here's how to do that).

We'll see how it goes.

[2] Working exclusively from home

I've long been convinced that working from home is the best thing that could've happened to humanity.

For most of 2024, I didn't have an office. Logically speaking, that makes perfect sense:

• I can focus better at home due to less distractions provided by other people.
• Doing video calls is much less painful with a nice home setup as opposed to sitting inside a phone booth.

Given that 95% of my work is (a) doing deep, focused work or (b) doing video calls, I should be working from home – right?

Well, I hate to admit it – but there's something to be said for offices. Being around people and having tiny interactions with them gives me energy. I want to share failures and successes with someone; spar ideas when I'm getting stuck; have a quick chat about something completely different to get my ideas flowing again.

Plus, working from a co-working space expands your luck surface area. So if I were to use the "luck razor", then getting a co-working space membership should be a no-brainer.

The Luck Razor: when faced with two options, pick the one that expands your luck surface area the most.

So if you wanna hang at a WeWork or Mindspace, hit me up.

[3] Being 5 minutes late to every meeting

"If you're on time, you're late." – Coach Bagley

I'm not sure where I picked up this habit, but this has got to stop ASAP. There's absolutely nothing to gain by being a few minutes late.

Quite the opposite: when you're late, you fundamentally show that you disrespect the other person's time. You expect them to show up on time, but prioritize whatever you had to do over their precious time. You make them suffer because of your inability to properly plan your schedule.

Which is kind of a dick move.

Conversely, by always being on time, you show that you're a reliable person.

Being on time could even be a keystone habit: at Mars (the candy company that's actually more of a pet food company), every employee would get a 10% (!) year-end bonus if they punched in every single day before 8am. Regardless whether they were factory workers or the CEO. (Source: Acquired podcast, strongly recommend checking out their episode on Mars)

The good thing: there's an easy solution to this; just be a tad early. I'll test drive this in January with 2 objectives:

1. "Punch in" at 08:15am or earlier every single day to build the habit of being on time even when nobody else is involved (even considered getting a physical punch clock but they're somewhat expensive)
2. Arrive 3 minutes early for every meeting.

Objective #2 also requires leeway in scheduling. For example, at Generalyst, I schedule my interviews in 30min increments. That usually means I'll be late to the 3rd interview of the day, and only later after, because it's really difficult to keep an interview under ~28 minutes.

This means I need to implement a system that gives me 5-10 minutes buffer time between interviews.

[4] Pretending I know everything

An interesting thing that happens once you have some legit work experience: you spend more time telling people than asking people what to do and how to do it.

It's been a hot minute since I last consciously attempted to learn something new. I mean, sure, I read a lot, and write my index cards now and then, but ... taking a class? Deliberately practicing something new?

Not really.

That's stupid. I know very little. There's so much still to learn even in the domains where I feel I'm already good at, whether that's writing, weightlifting, entrepreneurship or marketing.

Especially when it comes to building startups, I want to adopt a beginner's mind again. Because by definition, I am a beginner – I just launched this new business.

The thing to avoid: believing that you know everything. You can learn something from every person you meet, every interaction you have.

2025 is the year of the beginner's mind.

[5] Being distracted

Social media is poison for the mind.

It's a tool, and it can be quite useful – especially for professional purposes.

But it does suck energy, time, and focus.

Being focused is a superpower.

One that needs to be trained daily.

By having all sorts of distractions open, you train yourself not to focus. This topic has been a mainstay of my Not-To-Do Lists since 2021, because I believe that few things are more important than being focused on the one thing that you're currently doing.

"The present is a gift. That's why it's called the present." – unknown

One method that worked well in 2024 was going into "half monk mode" (more on this here): abstaining from anything that releases cheap dopamine, including social media, WhatsApp, emails etc.

Just pure, deep focus.

To hammer this home, let's invert this: if someone asked me what they could do in order to ensure that they miss their goals, what would I tell them?

Spend as much time as possible on social media and multitask while working.

That's the thing to avoid.

Focus is also one of the main topics of my online course, Personal Productivity OS. In the course, I share systems that you can implement right away to increase your focus.

Consider enrolling into the course to kickstart your year 2025. If you don't like it, get your money back within 30 days. No questions asked.

This, dear reader, is my Not-To-Do List for 2025.

Now it's time for you to step up:

What's on your Not-To-Do List for 2025?

I'd be excited to read yours. Email me, or join the discussion on LinkedIn:

Tip: check out this article for further instructions on how to properly run this exercise.

Have a great start to the year 2025. It's gonna be awesome.

Much love

Dominik

PS: You can find the earlier editions here:

• 2020
• 2021
• 2023
• 2024